Quarry Creek project about to return to the public

A proposal to put 656 homes on the former Quarry Creek mining property near the famed El Salto Falls waterfall has pitted preservationists against Carlsbad officials who want to complete a citywide housing plan before a pending state deadline.
— Don Boomer

A proposal to put 656 homes on the former Quarry Creek mining property near the famed El Salto Falls waterfall has pitted preservationists against Carlsbad officials who want to complete a citywide housing plan before a pending state deadline.
— Don Boomer

CARLSBAD  An area of North County that has attracted visitors for thousands of years is about to enter the spotlight again.

The stretch of low-lying land along the Buena Vista Creek — south of state Route 78 and east of the reed-lined Buena Vista lagoon — was first home to seafood-loving Native Americans and later to pioneering farmers and ranchers. It straddles what is now the border of Carlsbad and Oceanside, but the city of Carlsbad has the final say on the new homes proposed there.

For several years, the focus of that development has been the Quarry Creek housing project, scheduled to return to the Carlsbad Planning Commission for consideration in January. The commission will pass its recommendation on the project along to the City Council for a final decision, probably in February.

The development plan for the site calls for construction of 656 homes on 156 acres that were formerly a gravel quarry between College Boulevard and El Camino Real.

The land is owned by Hanson Aggregates, which operated the quarry for decades. The developer and project applicant is The Corky McMillin Companies, which was founded in 1960 and built a commercial center with Kohl’s and a Walmart store adjacent to the creek site, as well as 16 other master-planned communities in the region.

A draft environmental impact report on Quarry Creek was completed in September, and the public review period for the report ended Dec. 7.

Carlsbad Senior City Planner Van Lynch said Wednesday that 48 letters commenting on the draft report have been received and are being reviewed by a consultant for inclusion with responses in the final report to be presented to the Planning Commission.

“There’s a lot of comments regarding traffic ... and just the overall intensity of the project,” Lynch said. “Going through the comments is going to require a lot of work.”

The creek-side property is just west of El Salto Falls, a Spanish name that means “the leap.”

The waterfall can’t be seen from nearby roads and slows to a trickle in dry seasons. Still, it is the largest waterfall in coastal San Diego County and is considered sacred by San Luis Rey band of Mission Indians.

Archeologist have found seafood shells, pottery shards and stone tools and flakes that show Native Americans have lived near the falls for several thousand years.

“The falls will be preserved,” Lynch said.

The falls, the creek and the steep hillsides on the property, about 85 acres in all, would be left as open space for wildlife and recreation under the plan.

Most of the creek and the falls are in Oceanside. so Oceanside took the lead on a recently completed yearlong restoration effort that widened the creek bed to a more natural state, removed non-native plants and planted native vegetation along its banks.

Carlsbad has the lead on the residential development. Discussions of the proposal brought large crowds to Carlsbad City Hall in 2009, when the City Council agreed to designate the area for the construction of low-income residences to meet the state’s housing requirements.

The first phase of the Quarry Creek project was the commercial center at College Boulevard and Marron Road — also in Oceanside — that includes the Kohl’s and Walmart, as well as an Albertsons, smaller stores and restaurants. The northwest corner of the Kohl’s parking lot is almost directly above the waterfall.

Construction of the residential phase of the Quarry Creek project requires an update of Carlsbad’s master plan — its blueprint for growth — and the approval of the environmental report by the Carlsbad City Council.

“There’s a lot of interest in this,” Carlsbad planner Chris DeCerbo said recently. “There are many issues, such as the preservation of the creek corridor and the falls. We’re trying to achieve the best balance.”

Carlsbad resident Michael Haslam said recently that the Quarry Creek proposal includes too many homes.

“It has very limited access off of College,” Haslam said. “That’s the only way to come in and leave.

“They are creating this zone over there on College Boulevard that will be almost impassible,” he said, adding that at the busiest times of day a portion of Carlsbad could be cut off from emergency services at nearby Tri-City Medical Center.

The Planning Commission and City Council is required by law to consider concerns such as Haslam’s before approving the development.

City planners are still working with the developer on ways to handle the traffic, Lynch said.

Some consequences of the project can’t be avoided, he said. For example, the intersection at College and Marron that will see the largest increase in traffic can’t be moved or widened.

However, he added, the City Council could decide that the benefits of the project outweigh its negative aspects.